stars. Near the tent, a
pile of spent oxygen bottles gathered a drift. They glowed bright in Hanson’s
headlamp. Debris such as this would be left for all time. They were an addition
to the landscape. The local Ha-Jing, whose lands included half of great
Mallory, made good money selling permits to aspiring climbers, and this litter
came with the riches. The south face of Mallory, which some climbers posited
would make for an easier ascent, was governed by the irascible Hiti. Great
climbers by all accounts, but miserable at governing. The only assaults on that
face have been clandestine affairs. There had been some arrests over the years,
but like many who come to Eno hoping to etch their name in the history books,
most simply disappeared.
Hanson broke snow for the first hour, his head down in a
stiff breeze. We had radios in our parkas but rarely used them. Good tentmates
had little need for words. Roped in to one another, the union becomes
symbiotic. You match paces, one staring at a flash-lit patch of bright snow,
the other staring at a man’s back, illuminating a spot in a sea of darkness.
Boots fell into the rapidly filling holes of the climber ahead, each lifting of
a crampon some new torture, even with the springs of the powered climbing pants
taking most of the strain.
I’d lost count of the number of peaks we’d climbed
together. It was in the dozens across a handful of planets, most of those
climbs coming over the past five years. Climbers tend to orbit one another long
before they share tents. The first time I met Hanson was back on Earth on a new
route of Nanga Parbat, a small mountain, but notorious for gobbling souls.
Climbers called her “Man Eater,” usually with knowing and nervous smiles.
Tourists from other planets came to exercise on its west slope or to make an
attempt on its south face while preparing for harsher climbs. Some took the
tram to Everest to hike up to the top and join the legions who made that yearly
pilgrimage only to walk away wondering what the fuss was about.
I tended to bite my tongue during such diminishing talks
of my planet’s highest peak. My twenty-year partnership with Saul, my previous
tentmate, had ended on a harmless run up Everest. There was a saying among the
Hiti sherpas: Ropes
slip through relaxed grips . The nearest I ever came to death was while climbing indoors, of all
things. It wasn’t something I told anyone. Those few who had been there and the
doctors who tended to me knew. When anyone noticed my limp, I told them it
happened during my spill on Kurshunga. I couldn’t say that I’d failed to double
back my harness and took a forty foot spill on a climb whose holds had been
color-coded for kids.
Saul had also fallen prey to a relaxed grip. He had died
while taking a leak on Everest’s South Col. It was hard to stomach, losing a
good man and great friend like that. Hanson, who trudged ahead of me, had lost
his former tentmate in more glorious fashion the same year Saul died. And so
mountains brought couples together like retirement homes. You look around, and
what you have left is what you bed down with. Ours, then, was a marriage of
attrition, but it worked. Our bond was our individual losses and our mutual
anger at the peaks that had taken so much from us.
As Hanson paused, exhausted, and I rounded him to break
snow, I patted the old man on the back, the gesture silent with thick gloves
and howling wind, but he bobbed his head in acknowledgement to let me know he
was okay. I coughed a raspy rattle into my mask. We were all okay. And above
us, the white plumes and airborne glitter of driven ice and snow hid the way to
glory. But it was easy to find. Up. Always up. One more foot toward land that
no man had ever seen and lived to tell about.
4
At sixty thousand feet—the height of two Everests
stacked one on top of the other—man and machine alike tended to break
down. We were at the limit of my regimen of steroids. The gears in my hiking
pants
pile of spent oxygen bottles gathered a drift. They glowed bright in Hanson’s
headlamp. Debris such as this would be left for all time. They were an addition
to the landscape. The local Ha-Jing, whose lands included half of great
Mallory, made good money selling permits to aspiring climbers, and this litter
came with the riches. The south face of Mallory, which some climbers posited
would make for an easier ascent, was governed by the irascible Hiti. Great
climbers by all accounts, but miserable at governing. The only assaults on that
face have been clandestine affairs. There had been some arrests over the years,
but like many who come to Eno hoping to etch their name in the history books,
most simply disappeared.
Hanson broke snow for the first hour, his head down in a
stiff breeze. We had radios in our parkas but rarely used them. Good tentmates
had little need for words. Roped in to one another, the union becomes
symbiotic. You match paces, one staring at a flash-lit patch of bright snow,
the other staring at a man’s back, illuminating a spot in a sea of darkness.
Boots fell into the rapidly filling holes of the climber ahead, each lifting of
a crampon some new torture, even with the springs of the powered climbing pants
taking most of the strain.
I’d lost count of the number of peaks we’d climbed
together. It was in the dozens across a handful of planets, most of those
climbs coming over the past five years. Climbers tend to orbit one another long
before they share tents. The first time I met Hanson was back on Earth on a new
route of Nanga Parbat, a small mountain, but notorious for gobbling souls.
Climbers called her “Man Eater,” usually with knowing and nervous smiles.
Tourists from other planets came to exercise on its west slope or to make an
attempt on its south face while preparing for harsher climbs. Some took the
tram to Everest to hike up to the top and join the legions who made that yearly
pilgrimage only to walk away wondering what the fuss was about.
I tended to bite my tongue during such diminishing talks
of my planet’s highest peak. My twenty-year partnership with Saul, my previous
tentmate, had ended on a harmless run up Everest. There was a saying among the
Hiti sherpas: Ropes
slip through relaxed grips . The nearest I ever came to death was while climbing indoors, of all
things. It wasn’t something I told anyone. Those few who had been there and the
doctors who tended to me knew. When anyone noticed my limp, I told them it
happened during my spill on Kurshunga. I couldn’t say that I’d failed to double
back my harness and took a forty foot spill on a climb whose holds had been
color-coded for kids.
Saul had also fallen prey to a relaxed grip. He had died
while taking a leak on Everest’s South Col. It was hard to stomach, losing a
good man and great friend like that. Hanson, who trudged ahead of me, had lost
his former tentmate in more glorious fashion the same year Saul died. And so
mountains brought couples together like retirement homes. You look around, and
what you have left is what you bed down with. Ours, then, was a marriage of
attrition, but it worked. Our bond was our individual losses and our mutual
anger at the peaks that had taken so much from us.
As Hanson paused, exhausted, and I rounded him to break
snow, I patted the old man on the back, the gesture silent with thick gloves
and howling wind, but he bobbed his head in acknowledgement to let me know he
was okay. I coughed a raspy rattle into my mask. We were all okay. And above
us, the white plumes and airborne glitter of driven ice and snow hid the way to
glory. But it was easy to find. Up. Always up. One more foot toward land that
no man had ever seen and lived to tell about.
4
At sixty thousand feet—the height of two Everests
stacked one on top of the other—man and machine alike tended to break
down. We were at the limit of my regimen of steroids. The gears in my hiking
pants
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